“Ah, they’ve got the stable foundations started,” David said, in satisfaction, paying no attention to Etta’s remarks.
“Oh, yes, sir, they got the cement in day before yesterday,” Etta, diverted, answered, in the same placid whine.
“That’s fine,” David said, nodding to the various workmen as he walked about. “Room for four cows and about that many horses, and some day we’ll put a chicken run on that end.”
“Do they say when they’ll be coming back, sir?” Etta asked.
“Any time this summer, I suppose,” David said. “Mr. Tom is quite himself again—too well, in fact, Miss Sylvia wrote. I think she and Miss Gabrielle would have been glad to come straight home from San Francisco, but Mr. Tom saw the masts of ships again, and that was enough. He wired they wanted me to go around the world with them, but eventually they seemed to have compromised on Panama. I’ve not had letters yet, but in a telegram a few days ago—I told you that?—there was some talk of Central America.”
“Dear me,” said Etta, who always made this remark in any pause, “haven’t there been changes? That grand old house—John says it’d cost a million dollars to rebuild it now—it does seem such a pity it had to burn down!”
“The insurance,” David said, consolingly, “will more than build a much prettier and more homelike Wastewater.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Etta said, with the relished pessimism of an old servant. “I was wondering if Mr. Rucker had seen them pretty plastered houses over to the Crowchester Manor Estates?” she asked, adroitly.
David did not answer. He looked at the mud-spattered and torn blue-print that was anchored from the coquettish spring breezes upon a plank with two brick-bats, murmured to the contractor, suggested, approved.
It was easy for his thoughts to find Gabrielle at Wastewater, for they were almost all of her in these days, and it was here that she had spent her life, except her school years. David had no recollection of her in any other setting. To-day, as always, she seemed to be beside him, walking through the strangely altered spring garden, talking with him of the changes to be.